Two suspects in Kopp case called long-time anti-abortion activists

Marra, top, and Malvasi have a long history with the anti-abortion movement

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Federal authorities Thursday arrested a husband and wife in Brooklyn for allegedly harboring fugitive James Charles Kopp after the 1998 sniper killing of an upstate New York doctor who performed abortions.

Dennis Malvasi, 51, and Loretta Marra were taken into custody shortly after Kopp was arrested in France for the shooting of Dr. Barnett Slepian, 52, who was killed at his suburban Buffalo, New York, home in front of his wife and four sons by a single rifle bullet fired from nearby woods.

As the couple was taken away from FBI offices in Manhattan, Marra, apparently speaking to well-wishers, said, "Thank you" and "God bless you." The two are to be arraigned Thursday evening before Magistrate Joan Azrack in federal court.

Malvasi and Marra have a long history with the anti-abortion movement.

In 1987, Malvasi, an ex-Marine with explosives training, was sentenced to seven years in prison for dynamiting or attempting to blow up four New York-area clinics where abortions were performed. He surrendered to police earlier that year after Cardinal John O'Connor pleaded for him to turn in.

"The Cardinal is my shepherd," Malvasi told the judge. "If he tells me I cannot, that's an order. I cannot because that would get me in trouble with the Almighty and I ain't looking for that."

He then told the judge, "I thought the issue here is the slaughter of babies. I'd like to ask you one question, 'Is abortion murder?'" The judge didn't respond.

Kopp and Marra were arrested in early 1991 in Levittown, New York, for locking their feet together in a steel, doughnut-shape device in front of a clinic where abortions are performed. The two were charged with obstructing governmental administration and criminal trespass.

According to the Independent Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Raleigh, North Carolina, Malvasi recently received an award for his fight against abortion and, in an acceptance speech to abortion activists, he said:

"My favorite (slogan) is 'Violence never solves anything.' Of course it does, it solves all kinds of problems. And good and just men have used it throughout history," he said to a roar of cheers, according to the weekly newspaper.

"When a baby defender on the lam knows of a supporter who won't shut the door in his face ... this is beyond gold," he said in the same January 21 speech, according to the right-wing Web site, Streetpreach.com.

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